Category: Blood
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A medical visionary
David GreenChicago, Illinois, United States The year was 1967. My father had just had his prostate removed and was having considerable post-surgical pain. On the fifth post-operative day, he collapsed suddenly and could not be resuscitated. The post-mortem examination showed multiple fresh blood clots in his lungs. I was devastated but should not have been…
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Thalassemia
David GreenGeorge HonigGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States The thalassemias comprise a large and diverse group of genetic disorders which share as a common feature a deficiency, or in the most severe forms a total absence, of one or more of the globin chains of hemoglobin. It was first recognized as a clinical entity distinct from…
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Willebrand disease discovered in a girl from the Aland archipelago
In 1924 the Finnish physician Erik von Willebrand was consulted about the case of a five-year- old girl from the self-governing autonomous Swedish-speaking region of the Aland archipelago in the Baltic Sea. Born on February 1, 1870, in Vasa, Finland, von Willebrand had graduated in 1896 from the faculty of medicine of the University of…
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The curious history of autologous blood transfusions: Syringes and cheesecloths
Denis ChenNewcastle-under-Lyme, United Kingdom Autologous blood transfusion, the infusion of a patient’s own blood, is a relatively recent procedure. It was preceded historically by the classical descriptions of the blood by Hippocrates1 and Galen2; by the discovery of the circulation of blood by William Harvey and the description of the red blood cells by microscopist…
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The discovery of heparin
Mostafa ElbabaDoha, Qatar The sulfated glycosaminoglycan known as heparin is the most common anticoagulant used in clinical medicine. Its therapeutic role is to increase antithrombin activity. While its physiologic role in humans is not fully understood, heparin is stored and secreted from mast cells at sites of tissue injury and is believed to provide local…
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Tales of a sickler
Phebe SalamiGwagwalada, Abuja, Nigeria This piece is a work of fiction inspired by real-life stories of sickle cell disease. There are a thousand and one ways to tell a story. I guess this is just another one of those ways, my own way of telling this story… I wished I was like all the other…
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Book review: My Years with the British Red Cross
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The Red Cross is known worldwide as a great humanitarian achievement. The charity was founded by Swiss businessman Henri Dunant, who was moved by the lack of care available to people who had been wounded in the Battle of Solferino, Italy, in 1859. His idea was to produce national societies…
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Blood and hate: The anti-Semitic origin of the fabled first transfusion
Matthew TurnerMcChord, Washington, United States Introduction It is a story often repeated in medical textbooks: in 1492, Innocent VIII lay dying. His physician attempted the first recorded blood transfusion, transfusing the blood of three children into the deteriorating Pope. The treatment failed, and Innocent’s uneasy reign over Rome ended shortly afterwards. The story, set nearly…
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Dr. Marilyn Gaston’s lifesaving research
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “[W]e can seize the opportunity to honor the too-often-neglected accomplishments of [B]lack Americans in every endeavor throughout our history.”1– President Gerald Ford, 1976 Marilyn Gaston, MD (b. 1939), grew up in a poor family, with both parents working at low-wage jobs. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in…
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Xenotransfusion: blood from animals to humans
The idea of infusing the blood of animals into humans was first proposed in 1658 by the French monk Dom Robert des Gabets soon after William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood. Experiments consisting of transfusing blood from one species to another followed. In 1665 in Oxford Richard Lower transfused blood from one…